


Paradise in the Afternoon

by chinesebakery



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Birthday Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Leo Fitz turns 29, Part of Team Engineering's Birthday Celebration, SEYCHELLES - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, happiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 17:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7811644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinesebakery/pseuds/chinesebakery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While on holiday in the Seychelles, FitzSimmons celebrate Fitz's 29th birthday– and it's a happy one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradise in the Afternoon

**Author's Note:**

> To celebrate Leo Fitz’s upcoming birthday, @teamengineering has decided to create a series of fanworks in honor of everyone’s favorite engineer! We’ll post one a day from now through August 19th. You can find the others [here](http://teamengineering.tumblr.com/tagged/fitz-birthday)!  
> Thanks to AmandaRex for beta reading.

_August 19th, 2016_

"Happy birthday,“ Jemma says into his neck, her voice a breathless rasp. The cheer is punctuated with a slow trail of kisses down his throat and over the pulse point that beats frantically with his stammering heart.

He buries a hand into her hair to keep her pinned on top of him as he laughs, longer and louder than he really ought to. It’s intoxicating, this bliss that begins and ends with her and her alone– with her smile and her voice and her body and her warmth.

As Fitz fights the temptation to fall right back to sleep, he can’t help but wonder– how did he get here, lying in silky sheets with paradise just outside the window and Jemma in his arms, in his bed, kissing him with unabashed desperation and moaning his name in rapture?

A lot has changed since his previous birthday– _everything_ has changed. They’re not the same people they were, not after both spending months digging into depths they didn’t know they had. Of all the unimaginable things that happened to them, finding their way back to each other seemed the most unlikely– and yet, here they are.

“What is it?” she asks quietly as her index finger runs along his jaw.

“Nothing, I was just thinking– this birthday’s _very_ different from last year’s.”

“Oh,” she says simply, the stiffening of her spine almost imperceptible.

He can’t see her face, but he senses the shadow falling over her and instantly regrets voicing the thought out loud.

They have yet to find a way to talk about all the tragedies they’ve endured, one that doesn’t choke them or send them retreating inside themselves. For now, they only allude to them obliquely and with infinite caution. It’s like a maze, too easy to get lost in, but they’re so aware of each other they know when to reach out before one gets adrift.

Fitz sets about to distract her by counting the new freckles spreading over her hip– he’s been watching with undisguised delight as they multiplied day after day on her sunkissed skin. When she tenses again, it’s because he’s tracing a recently discovered constellation on her side, just below her ribs. She swats his hand before the giggling starts.

When she raises her head to meet his gaze– her hair mussed, her eyes still hooded with the last echoes of pleasure– he almost forgets he’s allowed to look at her the way he’s always longed to.

Her satisfied smile tells him she’s just read him correctly once more.

“What do you want to do today?” she asks, and resettles against him.

“This,” he says decidedly as his fingers trail down her hip again. “This, all day.”

Her head pops up again. “Fitz!” She means to sound outraged, but he can see clear as day that underneath the frown, she has the expression of a child who’s just been told she could have ice cream for dinner and can’t quite believe it. “It’s our _last_ day here. We can’t waste it loafing in bed.”

“No offense to turtles and friendly fishes, but this has been my favorite holiday activity by far,” he says, without a trace of irony.

“I made a lunch reservation.” The beam that tugged at her lips a moment before dims a little.

“That we could cancel,” he reminds her pointedly. There are no constraints here– that’s the point, precisely.

Still, her brow furrows further. “There will be a cake,” she warns. “Custom made.”

“Chocolate with whipped cream icing?” He can’t help the treacherous tint of hope in his voice.

“Maybe,” she says, her eye-roll belied by the stretch of her smile.

“Okay, then, we won’t cancel,” he concedes, and ignores her knowing laughter entirely. “There’s still plenty of time we could waste before lunch.”

She doesn’t even try to fight him, just this once, and he can’t tell if it’s because of his birthday or their impending return to the real world. Instead, she cranes her neck to meet his mouth for a string of lazy kisses. Paradise will still be there in the afternoon, and they’ve learned not to take their time together for granted.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr > chinese-bakery


End file.
